Presenting the social Semantic Web to Nepali Engineers in Japan

Yesterday I presented my paper titled “Information Sharing on the Social Semantic Web” in the Second NEA-JC Workshop on Current and Future Technologies. NEA-JC stands for Nepal Engineers’ Association – Japan Chapter. I made a general introduction to the social web and the Semantic Web, with the general audience from all backgrounds in mind. The paper has been written for non-technical audience. I am glad to see the interest shown by all in this area.

In general people understand what is the social web as there are many example sites many of them are actually using today. However, people find it hard to imagine what the Semantic Web is really like. There are rarely any sites that ordinary people are really using that could be used to cite examples of Semantic Web technologies. People are not satisfied by just understanding the vision and principles of the Semantic Web. People want to see the Semantic Web but its still hard to show to non-technical people.

I hope in the near future we will also have enough Semantic Web sites, just like the social or Web 2.0 sites today, so that people really see, understand and benefit from the Semantic Web. I feel that day will come soon with the social Semantic web, rather than pure Semantic Web technologies only. The social Semantic Web can be as common as the social web today if the social web community and the Semantic Web community work in cooperation.